Southern Baptists see attendance, baptism gains amid membership declines

By Aaron Earls

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. — Southern Baptist churches saw sustained growth in attendance and baptisms, but the two-decade membership decline continued in 2025.

Total Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) membership fell by more than 3 percent from 2024 to 2025, dipping to 12,331,954, according to the Annual Church Profile (ACP) compiled by Lifeway Research in cooperation with Baptist state conventions.

While fewer members belong to Southern Baptist congregations, more people are attending worship services and small groups and are being baptized.

On average, nearly 4.5 million people attend a Southern Baptist church each week, while more than 2.6 million participate in a small group Bible study or Sunday School class – both up more than 3 percent compared to 2024 and up for the fourth consecutive year.

Meanwhile, the number of baptisms increased by nearly 5 percent to well over a quarter of a million, marking five consecutive years of growth and surpassing pre-COVID levels.

“We are grateful Southern Baptists continue to show growth in key metrics like baptisms, worship attendance and Bible study participation,” said Jeff Iorg, president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee. “Southern Baptist churches are focused on sharing the Gospel and making disciples, the mission we cooperate to fulfill. While many other issues vie for our attention, pastors seem more determined than ever to focus on our core mission.”

Not all state conventions collect giving data, but among those that do, undesignated receipts in 2025 grew by almost 1 percent to $9,639,343,162.

In addition to some states not collecting information, in some areas, not all Southern Baptist churches report data for the annual census. In 2025, 61 percent of churches reported at least one non-financial item. The lack of reporting from some churches could be hiding larger attendance gains for the SBC.

Membership continues to shrink

Last year, the SBC marked its 19th consecutive year of membership decline, falling to levels last seen in 1973.

“Church closures and churches cleaning up their membership rolls to reflect those people God has currently entrusted to them have negative impacts on total membership numbers,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “Churches with more than four times as many members as their average attendance are either unhealthy or need to clean up their membership records.”

The states with at least half a million Southern Baptist church members include Texas (2,353,814), Georgia (1,122,485), Tennessee (1,036,601), Alabama (910,961), North Carolina (833,748), Florida (760,058), Kentucky (644,879), South Carolina (580,039) and Mississippi (575,925).

Unprecedented baptism growth

In 2025, 263,075 people were baptized in a Southern Baptist church, up 4.96 percent from the previous year. This is the first time in the past 75 years the SBC has seen five consecutive years of increases in baptisms. The numbers have not only rebounded since the pandemic but have now surpassed levels from 2017.

“Every baptism represents a life transformed, someone who has found forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ. That is what we celebrate today,” said Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board. “I am grateful for every pastor and every church that has made evangelism and discipleship a priority, and it is deeply encouraging to see baptisms increase for a fifth consecutive year. My prayer is that this momentum would not only continue but would deepen, drawing our entire family of churches into a renewed commitment to share the Gospel faithfully and make disciples who follow Christ for a lifetime.”

Currently, Southern Baptists baptize one person per 47 members, an improvement on the 1:51 ratio in 2024.

The state conventions with more than 10,000 baptisms last year include Florida (33,123), Georgia (26,049), Tennessee (19,277), North Carolina (18,461), the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) (17,934), the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) (17,569), Alabama (13,332), South Carolina (12,841), California (12,258) and Kentucky (11,781). As a whole, Texas saw 26,734 baptisms in Southern Baptist churches.

Thirty-one of the 41 state conventions reported more baptisms in 2025 than in 2024. The conventions with the highest growth in the number of baptisms were North Carolina (+3,773), California (+2,724), Florida (+2,422), Southern Baptist Convention of Virginia (SBCV) (+1,535) and Ohio (+1,058).

The states with the highest percentage growth in baptisms compared to the previous year were all outside of the traditional Bible Belt, including Alaska (+49.3 percent), Colorado (+40.3 percent), Michigan (+36.0 percent), Iowa (+32.1 percent) and California (+28.6 percent).

Along with baptisms, Southern Baptist churches had 168,649 other membership additions, among those congregations in state conventions that report the number.

Attendance and participation growth

In 2025, an average of 4,460,910 people attended a Southern Baptist church each week. The 156,285 more weekly attendees provided a 3.63 percent increase over 2024.

“It’s hard to directly compare today’s average worship attendance to pre-COVID attendance in 2019,” McConnell said. “The reported number is still almost 800,000 less than in 2019, but 10 percent fewer churches are reporting non-financial numbers on the ACP today than in 2019/ As cooperation improves, not only will metrics improve but Southern Baptists will be better positioned to impact communities for Christ.”

Five states average at least 300,000 people attending a Southern Baptist church each week: Texas (515,774), Florida (426,232), Georgia (386,887), North Carolina (374,809) and Tennessee (334,852).

The SBC also saw an increase in those attending a small group Bible study or Sunday School class. Last year, more than 2.6 million (2,650,291) participated in a small group at a Southern Baptist church, up 3.24 percent from 2024.

States with the more than 200,000 attending a small group at a Southern Baptist church are Texas (322,285), Georgia (248,705), Florida (242,436) and North Carolina (206,502).

Other convention data

The SBC lost 268 churches last year, falling to 46,608 affiliated congregations. That number includes those that closed and those that still exist but are no longer affiliated with the SBC. Church closures have outpaced openings across U.S. Protestantism, according to Lifeway Research estimates.

Not all state conventions lost churches, however, as 17 added to their number. The conventions that added the most churches in 2025 were the BGCT (33), SBTC (19) and SBCV (14).

The states with more than 1,500 churches affiliated with Southern Baptist state conventions are Texas (6,575), North Carolina (4,295), Georgia (3,252), Alabama (3,119), Tennessee (2,955), Florida (2,644), Kentucky (2,288), Mississippi (1,999), South Carolina (1,990), Virginia (1,874), California (1,807), Missouri (1,692) and Oklahoma (1,666).

The number of church campuses for multisite congregations increased. In 2025, Southern Baptist churches operated 765 additional campuses, up from 746 the previous year.

Not all states gather numbers on Vacation Bible School, but churches in participating state conventions saw VBS participation grow by more than 9 percent compared to 2024. In 2025, more than 1.66 million people were enrolled in VBS in reporting states.

For more information, view the 2025 Southern Baptist Convention statistical summary and the 2025 state convention statistic report and visit LifewayResearch.com.

Methodology

The Annual Church Profile (ACP) is an annual statistical census of Southern Baptist congregations conducted cooperatively by local associations, state conventions, and Lifeway Christian Resources. Around 3 in 5 Southern Baptist churches (61 percent) reported at least one non-financial item on the 2025 ACP.

Earls is a writer for LifeWay Christian Resources.